


our souls inhabit

by jillyfae



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Camille Belcourt - Freeform, Catarina loss - Freeform, Curse Breaking, Curses, Dreamsharing, Immortality, M/M, Ragnor Fell - Freeform, Referenced Camille Belcourt/Magnus Bane, Romance, Snow White Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22683820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: Once Upon a Time there was a boy who ran away from home... and found a better one. And a best friend who maybe wasn't real, but was by his side throughout his life, nonetheless.A Fairy Tale from the point-of-view of the Prince who shows up at the end... who maybe knows more about what's going on than anyone expected.
Relationships: Magnus Bane & Ragnor Fell, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 26
Kudos: 214





	our souls inhabit

His mother tries to kill him when she realizes what he is.

He runs.

Deep into the woods, where no one ever goes. Deeper still, lost and alone.

Until he finds a house, and in the house is a man, _a man with green skin and horns,_ a man who doesn't flinch at the sight of Magnus' eyes. The man's name is Ragnor and he invites Magnus in, feeds him and tucks him into a bed in the attic, and for the first time in a long time Magnus sleeps without nightmares.

He dreams though. Meets a boy while he's sleeping, an absurdly pretty boy with pale skin and messy black hair, a boy who seems about the same age as him, whose eyes are like the shadows in the woods, brown and green and glinting with warmth like sunlight. He's sitting stiffly on a stump that looks exactly like the one Magnus was on when Ragnor found him. 

_Are you lost?_ Magnus asks, and the boy frowns. 

_I think that might be better than what I am._

Magnus can understand that. He's apparently half-monster, horrifying enough even his mother can't bear the sight of him. 

_I'm sorry,_ the boy offers, his eyes damp as if he's trying not to cry. _My mother had to run away without me, to save my sister and the baby on the way, but at least I know she didn't want to leave me behind._

The boy's mouth doesn't move, and Magnus realizes neither of them are talking out loud, but they seem to know what they each mean despite that. 

_I'm sorry, too._ Magnus sits on the stump next to the boy, and the boy leans in, just a little, 'til their shoulders press together. They neither of them 'say' anything else, just sit there as the sun shifts and the winds blow through the dream-forest around them. 

Magnus wakes, and feels better than he has since he saw his eyes flicker into sight in the bucket of water he'd pulled up from the well the morning his world fell apart.

He grows there, in the house hiding in the woods, taught by Ragnor about what he is, and what he can do. He tries to stay alert, to watch out for that inevitable moment when the man grows tired of him, grows impatient, when the man finally says he's had enough.

It never happens. Ragnor makes him breakfast every morning, helps him brush the mud out of his clothes when he gets caught out in the rain, lingers with him in the garden after lunch, smiles at him over the edges of his books, and always answers every single question Magnus can come up with in the same steady tone of voice.

Ragnor seems to _like_ him, and the night Magnus hugs him before he goes to bed, Ragnor just hugs him back, and pats him on the shoulder when he lets go. 

"Sweet dreams," Ragnor says, and Magnus doesn't even try to hide the smile as he wraps himself up in his blankets that night.

Sometimes his dreams are still dark, memories and worries spiralling around each other. Sometimes they're sweet, newly discovered flowers or treats, impossible spells and improbable views, warm and comforting. Sometimes they're of the boy from the very first night, the prettiest boy Magnus has ever seen, much prettier than Magnus feels he could have imagined on his own. Not all the time, not any sort of consistent or expected schedule, but sometimes Magnus goes to sleep, _and there he is._

Those are the best nights.

They don't talk much, not even the silent sort of words that form in dreams, but they find comfort in each other as they explore the dream-forest, finding a rabbit warren or a new fairy ring, a cold-sweet spring or a wide-open clearing, a mirror of the world Magnus is getting to know when he's awake. They always end the night at that same familiar stump where they first met, sharing shy smiles or small waves before the dream fades away. 

It's nice to have a friend, even one that probably doesn't really exist. 

He learns to hide his eyes, settles into the glamour Ragnor taught him, and his dream friend frowns, and asks why he changed them. 

_I like your eyes, they're pretty._

Magnus tries not to blush, manages a shrug. _Most people think they're scary._

_People are stupid._

Magnus laughs. _Except for you?_

The boy blushes, and shakes his head. _Except for you._

They boy's barely a boy anymore, taller and ganglier, long arms and legs, hands hanging from his wrists like he's not sure what to do with them. Sometimes he looks at Magnus through half-closed eyes, his lashes thick and dark, and Magnus forgets how to breathe.

Magnus thinks he's the prettiest boy he's ever seen.

Then again, he hasn't spent much time around anyone besides Ragnor and his dream-friend in something like ten years. Ragnor gets visitors sometimes, old Warlocks or Fae stopping by for tea, but they don't usually have much to say to Magnus. They go to some of the towns near-by occasionally, shopping for supplies or seeing a show, but it's still usually just them, lingering in the cool green shadows of the woods. 

Magnus wonders what he's missing, somewhere _out there._

Tries not to wonder if maybe he could find the pretty boy, somewhere in the real world.

He talks to Ragnor about leaving, a little, about what he should do with his life, with his time. 

He's got too much of it just to stay here, lingering and waiting for something to happen. 

Magnus mentions that he's thinking of going on a trip to his dream-friend, finally, and the boy's eyes grow wide, and he shuffles his feet, and his mouth tightens just a little. 

Magnus waits.

_My name's Alexander._

Magnus blinks. That wasn't any of what he thought his friend was worried about. _I'm Magnus,_ he answers, and the boy, _Alexander,_ smiles at him, wide and delighted.

_Maybe you'll find me out there somewhere, Magnus._

Magnus swallows, and shrugs, and lets himself hope. _Maybe._

He doesn't. 

He meets Werewolves and Vampires and Fae. He learns of the world beyond the woods, human kingdoms and cities, people and monsters and heroes. He goes looking for more people like him, _like Alexander,_ like Ragnor, children lost and alone who don't have anyone else waiting for them, who don't yet know how to hide what they are, how to find people with whom they don't have to hide. 

Sometimes he helps them settle where they are, with a friend or a partner, makes sure they know how to call him if ever they need his help. 

Sometimes he brings them back to Ragnor, to warm tea and cool green shadows, lets them learn, just as he did, how to set their worries down, how to _breathe._ The house shifts, and every time he's there his room is the same, but there's another guest-room in the attic now, sometimes two, a place for someone else to rest and recover and learn. 

Every time he's there he dreams, at least once, of his boy who isn't remotely just a boy anymore. Alexander's a young man now, tall and broad-shouldered, taller than Magnus, with a strong jaw and heavy eyebrows, but still there's that same soft light in his eyes every time he welcomes Magnus back home. 

Magnus leaves again, and again.

Magnus meets Camille, who is beautiful and sharp and brilliant and _forever_. He loves her, and she loves him, and they dance and fight and fuck, they fall together and break apart over and over again. 

He returns to the house in the woods regularly, even when he's not carting someone who needs sanctuary in tow. He spends a year or five discussing books and plants and Ragnor's terrible taste in tea. He dreams of Alexander, with his sweet smile and the shadows in his beautiful eyes. He cannot help but be glad that, for as long as the two of them wander their woods, the tension he glimpses in Alexander's posture eases, and his eyes look a little lighter by the end of their visits than they do at the beginning. They smile at each other, here, no matter how tired they might be when they're awake.

Magnus talks about collecting ingredients for potions, about the house's garden and the way it's grown over the years. Alexander talks about archery, and the sound of rain against library windows, and training his new horse.

Magnus talks about traveling, about new sights with every dawn, new people over every drink at night. Alexander's smile seems sad, but he asks more questions, always more, and Magnus wonders where he's trapped, wonders at how carefully he never mentions the names of the people he knows, as if he's afraid, even here, that someone might overhear. 

Magnus tries not to think too much about how many years have passed, how many times he's looked for Alexander out there in the world, how he's never found the slightest hint of him. 

He meets Imasu, who is sweet but fleeting. George who dies too young. He meets more souls who might love him, but leave him for something more steady, more _human._ He goes back to the woods to nurse his heavy heart when it gets too much to bear, and Ragnor makes him tea, and his Alexander meets Magnus in the shadows of his dreams and _smiles_. 

Magnus smiles back.

But the dreams aren't every night, and sometimes Magnus wonders what they mean to Alexander, how they fit into the life he lives in his own waking world.

 _I miss you,_ Magnus says, and Alexander only shrugs, half-agreement and half something else that Magnus doesn't understand. It's not regret, or hope, but it's not _not_ either of those things either. 

They wander their woods, which look much the same as they ever do, eternal and barely changing, just like them.

 _You always come back,_ Alexander says instead of good-bye, when the dream starts to fade around them.

 _I'll always be waiting,_ Magnus thinks he hears as he blinks awake, but he's not sure if it's real, or only wishful thinking. 

Magnus' heart heals, and news from the world trickles even into these woods, and eventually Magnus leaves again. But he always comes back, to Ragnor's warm silences and Alexander's warmer eyes. 

Sometimes Magnus asks Alexander if he'd like Magnus to stay, here in the woods where their dreams intersect, but Alexander always says no, shakes his head with a smile. _You're never gone that long, and I like to hear about the world you see._

So different than the one he lives in, clearly. 

_How long since the last time you saw me?_ Magnus asks. Because he wandered almost twenty years this time, and he may be immortal but that's not nothing, even for him. 

_Maybe a week?_ Alexander answers. _Why? How long was it for you?_

Magnus shakes his head a little. _A thousand times as long, perhaps._

Alexander goes still, so still it seems that even the trees could move faster than him, if they so decided, and he sighs out one long heavy breath. _Oh. That explains a lot._

_It does?_

But Alexander doesn't explain. He just smiles again, something sad and sweet both at once, and leans in close enough to brush a kiss against Magnus' cheek. 

Magnus blinks in surprise, but before he can even lift his hand to his cheek to feel the phantom warmth from Alexander's lips against his skin, he wakes up. 

He gets a message from Catarina only a few days later, asking for his help with a squabble between some Vampires and Werewolves that could too easily escalate into a full-blown conflict, and he leaves the woods without getting to see Alexander again. Not that he's ever been able to control the dreams, or ever known when they're to be separated, but it aches more than usual this time, not getting to say good-bye. 

He meets Camille again. She's still beautiful and brilliant but something in her eyes has gone brittle. He tries to be soft enough to soothe, but she just gets sharper, and when they drift apart again this time it's almost with relief.

Back and forth for years, for decades, the house, the world, Ragnor and Catarina and then Dot and Elias, Tessa and Zoe and on and on... Alexander in his dreams, now and then, though it's less often than it used to be, even when he lingers in the woods for years. 

One night he finds Alexander at a make-shift archery range, pulling his bow back so far his arms tremble, blood on his hands from where he's let the string snap, let the fletching catch as his arrows fly free. 

_Alexander._ Magnus lingers, a few steps back, magic sparking between his fingers, desperate to reach out and offer comfort. 

Alexander chokes, the sound rough and sudden enough to make Magnus' throat ache in sympathy, to make his eye burn with the echoes of grief. 

Magnus steps closer. 

_Alexander,_ he thinks. 

Alexander drops his bow, turns, and Magnus wraps him in his arms. 

Alexander's trembling, his breath hot and shivering against Magnus' neck, his fingers digging into Magnus' shoulder as he grips him tight. 

_My father's dead._

_Oh, darling._ Magnus hugs him tighter. Alexander has occasionally talked about his mother before, his sister, the baby he never got to meet. He wonders about them, hopes they're all right, somewhere out there. Alexander barely mentions his father, his jaw always tight and his eyes too bright, as if he doesn't know what to feel, what to say, and it's clear his father's death hasn't made that conflict any easier. 

Magnus holds him, lets his magic free to heal the physical damage, at least, and Alexander doesn't cry. 

Magnus feels hungover when he wakes up, but there's nothing he can do for either of them. 

When he dreams again, Alexander acts like none of it ever happened, but there's a shadow in his eyes that no longer fades, even when he smiles his usual soft greeting at Magnus. He's hiding, Magnus knows, but he doesn't know how to help lift Alexander's burden. (Alexander clearly knows that Magnus knows, offering an embarrassed smile and a small shrug. Alexander doesn't know what to do, either.) Magnus does his best to provide a sanctuary, at least, and hopes it's enough, even when they're apart.

Magnus finds his father, entirely by accident. And then he flees him, this terrible Prince of Hell, this darkness that twists and turns and laughs, even as blood spills, even as magic burns innocent lives to ash. 

His father follows.

Magnus banishes him. He's not sure if it worked, or if Asmodeus is humoring him, biding his time until he can try again. He considers isolating himself, exiling himself somewhere far away from anyone he needs to protect from the shadows of his father's gaze. But he can't quite make himself do it.

He can't bear to be so alone.

Magnus runs back to hide in his woods, to shelter in Ragnor's care and Alexander's comfort until he no longer wakes up screaming at the memories of hell in eyes that looked just like his own.

Alexander asks him about his magic, asks how old he is, asks how often he comes back to the woods. 

Magnus tells him, and thinks they both feel better for it. 

Alexander asks him about curses, and hexes, asks about the Fae and Vampires and Demons.

_Finally figured me out, did you?_

Magnus tries to make a joke of it, but Alexander won't let him flinch.

_No, of course not._

Alexander pulls him close, his gaze steady and sincere in a way Magnus has never seen anyone else manage. 

_I've met evil, and you're the furthest thing from it._

Magnus swallows. He remembers when they met, how Alexander's family had to run away from something, how he couldn't go too. He remembers the grief and guilt in Alexander's eyes ever since his father's death. He thinks of the weight Alexander always seems to carry, even here, in the realm they share that doesn't quite exist. 

_You're in danger, aren't you?_ Magnus asks. 

Alexander's eyes are sad as he shrugs. _Isn't everyone?_

 _Not like that,_ Magnus wants to lean in even closer, wants to let his fingertips touch Alexander's lips, wants to rest his palm against his cheek. _No one should be in danger like that._

But shoulds don't change the world they live in, either of them, so Magnus tells him about blood-magic and hexes, curses and counter-curses, how to spot a Vampire, contain a Werewolf, how to tell when a Fae is dodging the truth even harder than usual, how to hide from a demon. 

When he wakes he thinks about Alexander's questions, about curses and wards and the intent behind most magic spells, and he goes digging through Ragnor's library, adds to his list of things to look for the next time he goes out into the world. 

Most wards are specific, _this_ counter to _that_ magic, and Alexander isn't a Warlock, he can't tell Magnus enough about whatever it is that he's afraid of for Magnus to know what sort of spell might be cast, which sort of shield might work.

He needs something _else,_ something different. Something that can react to that _intent_ rather than the spell itself?

Something that can dodge it, or move it to the side, or... reflect it? 

Seelies are fond of mirror magic. Maybe he'll visit them and see what he can learn.

He wanders, and studies, and life goes on, as it always does. 

He has a family now, one he chose rather than the one he'd been born of, and the world keeps growing, and changing, and shifting. Except for the house and Ragnor, who stay the same, cool and green and quiet. Except for Alexander, who welcomes Magnus back to his dreams every time he returns. 

It takes a few decades, but he manages to figure out a spell, a protective ward linked to a necklace, a flat piece of silver, slightly curved, polished 'til it gleams like a mirror. He looks at it when he's done, and sighs. It's not as if he can take it into his dreams with him. 

He finds the old stump, petrified almost as hard as stone now, the one where he'd met Ragnor, the mirror of the one where he met Alexander. He puts the necklace there, in the hollow between the roots, and hopes intent matters enough that it will help, wherever Alexander really is now. 

(It doesn't seem to. He takes Alexander back to the stump in their next shared dream, and there's nothing there. He sighs, but then Alexander smiles at him, and he cannot help but smile back as they wander their way to a different clearing, close enough their hands almost touch with each step as they talk.)

He leaves again, feeling more aimless than usual without his research project, and loses track of time for a while. But only for a little while. He'll always come back home again, after all.

Until he tries to go back home, and Ragnor meets him at the edge of the woods, and says _No._

Something about a prophecy, and Camille, and some poor young mortal and it's important that Magnus _not interfere,_ and Magnus leaves and gets very drunk and refuses to cry into his beer.

For about a decade. 

Maybe two? 

He misses Ragnor, and his home, and most of all he misses his dreams, and Alexander, and now that it's too late it's painfully apparent that somewhere along the way he fell in love with a person who probably doesn't exist, and he doesn't know what to _do_ about any of it. 

Even in the state he's in, he hears about Camille, about how she made herself Queen of a human kingdom, about a Mirror she stole from the Seelie Queen, about vassals and servants, Vampires, Ghouls, Subjugates, and poor besieged Humans, all under her power.

About the rumors of a lost heir, still alive somewhere in the woods, and Magnus knows that's the one that Ragnor's protecting, and he still doesn't understand why he's _here_ and not _there,_ why Ragnor wouldn't let him _help._

Until he feels a tug on his magic, and goes outside the Inn he's currently wallowing in to see Camille herself, looking half-dead rather than undead, her arm hanging like it's broken, her hair streaked with grey, her lips dark with old blood, her clothes torn and ragged and dirt-stained. She's trembling, her skin paper-thin and sallow, her knuckles too big for her fingers as they twist and grip in front of her. The taste of blood-magic and curses linger in the air around her, twisted into something sharp and bright and painful, and the distinctive shape of a scrying mirror is strapped to her back. 

_Help me,_ she begs, eyes dark and vicious, and he nods, and opens a portal, and sends her to the Seelie Queen.

He'll remember that last scream of rage and terror in his dreams for the rest of his life, as the Seelies claim her with their vines, powerful enough to bind even Camille at her strongest, never mind what she's become now. But she had murdered innocents, and there had been fear in her eyes but not regret, and he knows sometimes you can't escape the consequences of your actions.

He goes back inside and doesn't even pretend to sleep.

He considers going back to the woods, what used to be _his_ woods, but there's a shiver in his chest where his heart used to be, and he knows if Ragnor sends him away again he won't survive, so he doesn't.

If no one tells him _no_ again, he can still hold onto the hope that he'll see Alexander again some day. He has time, after all. 

He just hopes Alexander does too.

He waits, hoping to hear what the rumors say, to see if this time he hears a whisper of what Ragnor was trying to protect, of the prophecy or the heir or the huntsman.

There's nothing. 

Instead Catarina walks into his room entirely unannounced early one foggy morning, takes one look at him as he sits up in bed, clutching his blankets to his chest, and starts swearing, sharp and vicious under her breath.

Magnus blinks at her in surprise. She lifts one finger, _wait_ , and turns around and leaves again.

Magnus considers the possibility he's started hallucinating from spending too much time by himself.

He gets himself up and shaved and dressed and goes down to the common room for breakfast.

Might as well be presentable if the hallucinations decide to talk to him next time.

Ragnor shows up while he's still lingering over his tea. His shoulders are hunched and his hair is a mess, and his glamour is thick enough Magnus can't see his horns, but his skin looks slightly green-tinged anyways.

There's an ache in Magnus' chest at the suggestion that Catarina ripped Ragnor a new one on Magnus' behalf, but he tries not to linger on it too much as he gets up and goes back to his room, listening for Ragnor's familiar steps following him up the stairs.

Of course he doesn't know what to _say,_ even once they're back in his room with the door shut and a privacy ward raised, so he lets his hand rest on the back of his favorite armchair by the hearth, tries not to make the desperate grip he needs to keep himself steady too obvious, and waits.

Ragnor's mouth twists, and his hands spread wide, and Magnus realizes he's never once in all his centuries see the man look so _hopeless._ "Why didn't you, why did you disappear for so long?"

There's a spark of something that might be anger, somewhere beneath all the heart-break and loss and fear. "You told me to leave," Magnus makes himself say. 

"Not like—" Ragnor starts, and he lifts his gaze from the toes of his boots and meets Magnus' eyes and his voice breaks off in his throat. "Oh."

Magnus waits again, but it's different now, a trembling sort of anticipation as he watches the expression on Ragnor's face shift, frustration to understanding to guilt. 

"I didn't mean it like that." He swallows so hard that Magnus can see the shift down his throat, so hard his glamour flickers, green flashing across his skin, the shadow his horns cast visible against the wall. "I'm sorry." 

Magnus closes his eyes, and feels himself sway, relief so heavy he can't hold himself upright. He barely hears the heavy tread of Ragnor's step forward before he feels Ragnor's arms around him, gripping him tight. "I'm sorry, please come home."

Magnus clings, and ignores the burning in his eyes, and nods.

When he finally lets go of Ragnor's shoulders, Ragnor won't meet his eyes, shifts sideways just a little, guilt heavy in the clenching of his jaw, in the thin tone of his voice when he starts talking. "I have to tell you something else."

Magnus snorts out something that might be a laugh, ignoring how damp it sounds from the tears still caught in his throat. "Cat came looking because you need my help with something, don't you?"

Ragnor's whole body sags with relief, and he nods. 

Magnus gestures at the chairs, and collapses with a sigh into his favorite. "Start from the beginning, _mon ami._ "

Ragnor snorts, and sighs, and leans forward, his elbows resting heavily on his thighs. 

"You remember Idris?" 

Magnus tilts his head, wondering how that's the beginning, but nods. "That's the country Camille took over. Are they recovering all right?"

Ragnor lifts his head, eyes wide and startled. "How did you know she was gone?"

Magnus feels his mouth twist, even as he flicks his fingers to the side to attempt to send the bitterness away. "She thought I'd help her get away."

"You didn—"

"Of course not." Magnus swallows, makes himself meet Ragnor's eyes. "I returned her and her stolen property to the Seelie Queen."

Ragnor shudders, but it looks more like relief than horror. "Hopefully we don't need to find her then."

Magnus swallows, something like dread crawling up his spine. "Why would anyone need to find _Camille_?"

Ragnor huffs out a breath, and Magnus realizes he still looks hopeless, helpless, lost in a way Magnus has never seen before. "Because I don't know how to break the curse she cast."

Magnus thinks of that taste in the air around Camille, blood and desperation, the weight of the mirror on her back, the rumors of the Seelie Queen's increasingly desperate attempts to get it back. "She used a Seelie artifact to cast a blood-curse?"

Ragnor shrugs. "We think so, but it's all tangled up in an old prophecy, and Raphael can't—"

Magnus holds up a hand. "Wait, stop. We're in the middle again."

Ragnor snorts. "And whose fault is that?"

"You're the one who's supposed to be explaining yourself."

Ragnor glares over his glasses, and Magnus feels his face ease into a smile more honest than any he's attempted in years. 

It's good to have his best friend back.

Ragnor's attempted frown softens, as if he feels the same way, and he leans back in his chair and clears his throat. "Camille managed to weasel her way into Idris as some sort of royal advisor, used the mirror to fool some King into thinking she was Fae instead of Vampire, and set herself up as the power in the shadows for a generation or three."

Magnus grunts. That's longer than she usually sticks—longer than she used to stick to one game. "What was she trying to accomplish?"

"There's an old prophecy attached to Idris, the original's been lost for centuries, but it was something about a King under unnatural influence, and a gift of magic the likes of which the world had never seen before, would never see again, and..."

"She thought she could be the unnatural influence and snag the gift for herself?"

Ragnor shrugs. 

"And even if nothing fancy happened, she'd become the sort of person who'd enjoy playing with mortals for a few hundred years." Magnus closes his eyes, remembers the first time he saw Camille, remembers dancing the night away, the bright sound of her laugh, the touch of her fingers against his skin. He makes himself open them again before he thinks too much about that final scream before he'd closed the portal between him and the Seelie Realm. "I wonder sometimes if the woman I fell in love with ever really existed, or if it was all one of her games..." 

"Immortality wears on everyone, in different ways."

"I suppose," Magnus frowns, and tries not to swear. "Is that the prophecy that convinced you to banish me?"

"I didn't—" Ragnor stopped as Magnus lifted his eyebrows. "I just meant for you to contact me from a safer distance. There's a line in it that's generally thought to be about a Prince of Hell being forsworn, and the curse coming full circle, and..."

Magnus' mouth opens, then closes again. He is the only Warlock he knows whose father tried to claim him as an heir to hell itself. "You didn't want my magic close enough to screw up an already weird prophecy."

Ragnor grunts. "I apparently should have phrased it better."

Magnus rolls his eyes. "Clearly."

"You could have asked!" Ragnor snarls back. 

Magnus grunts this time. "But that's not really part of your story, either?"

Ragnor looks like he's considering some sort of hex before he sighs and shrugs and starts talking again. "Robert Lightwood, King of Idris, had an affair. When he got caught out, he managed, presumably thanks to Camille's influence for the idea and some judicious _encantos_ for the execution _,_ to convince the Kingdom of Idris it was his _wife's_ fault, and she fled the country ahead of treason charges."

Magnus stills, and remembers Alexander's mother. 

Ragnor keeps talking, and it takes more effort than Magnus will ever admit to follow what he's saying. 

"The Queen was pregnant with their third child, took their daughter with her when she ran, but Robert had already formally recognized their eldest as his heir, and she knew if she tried to take him too they'd never be able to get away..."

Magnus can't _breathe,_ barely notices when Ragnor's voice cracks with what sounds like genuine grief, as if he knows them personally, as if it's not just a story, as if this is the important part, not just the background to whatever happens next. 

"When." Magnus' voice sounds like he's dying, more of a croak of pain than words, and he makes himself swallow, makes himself try again. " _When did she run._ "

"Twenty years ago." Ragnor stops, but Magnus is too deep in his own head to notice, not really, certainly can't tell what Ragnor is thinking, what he's feeling, what his voice or his face might be doing. There's a lengthy pause, and Magnus tries to think, because it _can't_ be Alexander, that first dream was hundreds of years ago, not twenty, but _their time never matched,_ and he'd tried not to think about it too much before, tried not to wonder if his dreams were with a mortal and someday he'd see Alexander aging, or if it was all some prolonged figment of his imagination and someday the illusion would grow too shallow, he'd be forced to realize they weren't true, _but their times never matched,_ and if a week was twenty years than why couldn't twenty years be... 

"Now that I know Camille's gone, though, I can send for them, she gave me her mother's necklace before she left so I could track them, no matter where they w—" 

"Name." Magnus snaps, not even sure what Ragnor had been saying anymore. "I need a _name._ "

"Whose?" Ragnor sounds honestly bewildered now, which in other circumstances might be interesting, Magnus isn't sure he's ever managed to _bewilder_ Ragnor before, but at the moment he just needs to know his damn _name._ "Robert and Maryse? Isabelle? I don't know what she named her youngest, they were gone before the birth."

"The heir." Magnus is standing, he doesn't remember standing up, but he's glaring down at Ragnor, fists clenched at his sides. "He's the one you were protecting when you sent me away, wasn't he, what's his name?"

"Alec?"

 _Oh hells, damnation and gods and demons and..._ "Short for Alexander?"

"Well, yes, but." Ragnor starts to stand, hands outreached as if to touch, clearly able to tell that something is happening even if he doesn't know what. He's moving too slowly though, and Magnus grabs the lapels of his coat, pulls 'til Ragnor's on his feet, 'til they're face to face.

"Take me to him, now."

"But I haven't even told you the—"

"Now." 

Ragnor nods. 

He waits a beat, then gently lifts his hands, wraps them around Magnus' wrists. "I need room if I'm to make the portal, Magnus." 

Magnus lets go, steps back, exhales something that feels like his soul itself might be trying to flee. He shakes his arms out, clenches and releases his hands. "Please," he whispers. 

Ragnor makes the portal, and reaches back, and Magnus grabs his hand much too hard. 

He stumbles into a familiar attic, ignores Catarina's startled _hello,_ because there's Alexander, tucked into the same bed Magnus always used when he stayed here, eyelashes resting heavy against his cheeks, chest lifting ever so slowly beneath a quilt Magnus doesn't recognize. 

_I suppose Ragnor finally got new blankets in the last twenty years,_ he thinks rather helplessly, even as he steps forward and falls to his knees beside the bed. His hand reaches out, hovering over Alec's cheek, then his chest, but he's afraid this is real, afraid it isn't, and he doesn't know what he's seeing or why, or what to do. 

"Alexander." Magnus shakes his head, ignores the ache in his chest and his throat and his head. His hand is trembling, he can't quite seem to keep it steady, and it bumps against the collar of Alec's shirt, opens it enough he sees the glint of a silver chain. 

His breath hitches, and he can feel the tears overflowing his eyes and falling down his cheeks. He makes his hand move, just enough to open the collar a little further, to see the familiar curve of silver glinting where it's settled in the hollow of Alexander's throat. "You're real and you _found it._ "

He starts to reach for the necklace itself, to touch the magic, _to touch Alexander,_ when a familiar voice interrupts him. "What the _fuck,_ Magnus." 

Magnus turns, and can't help the grin he can feel beneath his tears. "He's real, Cat!"

"Most people are?" 

"He found it!" Magnus turns back, and Catarina slaps his shoulder hard enough he almost falls over onto the bed. 

"Stop that!" She tugs on the back of his shirt, trying to pull him away from the bed. "We haven't figured out how he's not _dead_ , if you must know the truth, and I don't want you screwing up whatever..."

"It's the necklace." Magnus points. "I made it for him."

"You what?" Ragnor speaks up this time. "I never told you anything about him, and I certainly had no clue that Camille knew how to make a kairothanasia."

Magnus chokes on his next breath. "She did a _what_?"

Cat makes an almost identical choking sound. "You gave him something that stopped a curse without knowing what curse to stop?"

"I didn't even know it was Camille he was afraid of!"

"What." Ragnor's voice drops almost an octave, and he lifts both hands, palms out, in a very clear _stop_ gesture. "Alec is stable, even if we're not entirely sure why, so I suggest we sit and try to start this conversation over again. From something resembling a beginning." 

"Because that worked so well last time?" Magnus huffs out a breath as Ragnor and Catarina both glare at him. "It's not my fault, I didn't know he was real!"

"But you made him a real necklace that does impossible magic!" Catarina's voice rises higher than Magnus thinks he's ever heard it go before, and eyes and hands are both spread wider than looks comfortable. "What did you _do_?"

Ragnor grunts, and claps his hands, and the bench at the foot of the bed scrapes across the floor as it moves to settle beside the chair angled between the window for light and the chimney for warmth. "Sit."

They sit. 

Ragnor summons the small table from his study, and Catarina summons some tea, and they both stare at Magnus.

"Every time I'm here," Magnus gestures broadly around them, both at the house and the woods outside, "I have these dreams where I'm wandering these woods, with..." Magnus trails off, and turns his head to look at the bed. "With him."

"He's not even thirty years old."

Magnus laughs, a hollow sort of helplessness as he shrugs. "Our times never did seem to match. I'd be gone for twenty years, and he'd say his last dream was less than a week before."

"That's impossible." 

"The first one was the very first night I was here." Catarina's face turns into a pained sort of grimace; they all know what _first nights_ are like, when a young Warlock realizes what they might be, and Magnus barely stops himself from shrugging again. "You remember that stump you found me sitting on, Ragnor?"

"Only because you'd go back to visit it." Ragnor frowns. "Now that you mention it, it's where I met Maryse and her children when she was fleeing Idris, too, and it's where Raphael brought Alec when Camille ordered him killed after his father died, before he could be coronated properly himself."

Catarina puts her tea down with a quiet clink of porcelain. "Poor Raphael, he looked so disgusted watching me bespell that pig's heart to smell like human blood for him to take back to Camille as proof."

Magnus shudders in sympathy. That spell was messy, and would have required some of Alexander's blood put into the pig's heart to convince the rest of it to change to match. "It must have worked for awhile, Robert—" Magnus stops, swallows, remembers Alexander trembling as he clung to Magnus in a clearing in the middle of the woods. Remembers the news, much more recently, of the death of the King of Idris, of the Regent taking over, of Camille becoming Queen. "His father died a few years ago, didn't he?"

"He and his second wife, the poor woman. Carriage 'accident', or so the stories went." Ragnor clicks his tongue, echoing the porcelain as he puts his cup down next to Catarina's. "She had no idea what she was getting into, falling for a Lightwood."

 _Neither did I, apparently._ Magnus swallows, and tries to figure out what to say next. "That stump was where I met Alexander, in that first dream. It's where I put the necklace, after I made it. I'm not sure why I did it, couldn't have told you while it was happening, I knew I couldn't take it into a dream, but I just... I wanted to help."

"What, exactly, was this _help_ then?" Catarina leans forward.

"It's just a basic ward twisted into a bit of silver." Magnus had repeated and twisted it nine times to make it as powerful as the silver could bear, but that wasn't _difficult_ , it just required patience and brute force. Rather a lot of it, perhaps, but he'd had the time and power to spare. Would have spared anything, he realizes, for Alexander. "I based the shape of the spell on a Seelie mirror though, so it would reflect any magic that carried an intent to harm, rather than trying to set up counters for specific spells."

 _Just,_ Catarina mouths at him, and shakes her head. 

Ragnor whistles softly. "It wouldn't work on raw magic or accidental damage like a personal ward, but it's perfect for someone being targeted who can't work magic directly."

"Thank you." Magnus twists in his chair to look at Alexander again. "Was it though?"

"He's still alive," Catarina answers, her voice almost unbearably soft. "That's a miracle, considering."

"Are you sure about that?" Magnus can't stop himself, he stands, starts to move closer to the bed, to Alexander. "How did she even manage to make a kairothanasia?"

"Enough blood and intent, focused through that mirror?" Magnus hears Catarina stand up behind him. "Camille has more than enough of both."

"Had," Magnus corrects, and he walks the rest of the way toward the bed. He vaguely hears Ragnor telling Catarina about Camille as he kneels again, but he isn't really paying attention. If his necklace had worked, it should have reflected the curse back on Camille. But she hadn't been cursed to have never existed, hadn't had her blood erased all the way back before she'd been born, like she'd tried to do to Alexander. Magnus remembers every time they'd met, every rumour he'd heard of what she'd done when they were apart. She hadn't even been killed by it, not quite, no matter how damaged she'd been when she'd tried to ask Magnus for help.

But if her curse had worked, if the necklace had failed, _Alexander_ would have never existed, and here he is, alive and breathing and one of the few constants of Magnus' life.

So it's something in-between. The kairothanasia's the strongest curse Magnus knows, and if Camille had powered it with enough blood, enough intent, if that mirror was as dangerous as it seemed, it would have been too much even for the necklace's protection to reflect in its entirety. But some of it... 

Some of it had rebounded back on Camille, some of it was keeping Alexander asleep, but that couldn't be all of it, not a curse like that, not one that killed someone's past as well as their future. 

Magnus reaches a hand out again, holds it above the necklace, and _stretches,_ oh so gently, magic twisting from his fingers to brush against the wards he'd set. He hisses in pain as they spark back at him, and pulls his hand away, cradles it against his chest. 

_Well._

_Fuck._

The curse is still _there,_ tangled up in the necklace, resting so close to Alexander's heart that Magnus has to bite his lip and focus on the sting to make himself think rather than reach down and try and yank the necklace off Alexander's body. The wards are clearly strong enough to block the _intent,_ but the spell still wants to complete itself. He narrows his eyes, thinks about the feel of those sparks, warm and lively, and wonders. It's powerful, potentially deadly, but it doesn't feel like blood-magic anymore, tastes like regular magic rather than a curse, as if the wards managed to twist it inside out, just like Magnus had wanted, but it was too big. 

By the time it had finished twisting the curse, the blood magic and wards were knotted too tightly together to push it back out again? 

"Time," Magnus whispers. The kairothanasia erases someone from _time,_ and all the results from the deflection have only happened _now._ He has to let the spell do something to the rest of Alexander's lifetime or it'll just sit there, twisted around backwards and eating Alexander's future instead of his past.

_Alexander's past._

Alexander's _impossible_ past, full of dreams with Magnus from before he was born. 

Maybe he needs to let the spell do something that has _already happened,_ maybe he has to let it make Alec _alive before he was born,_ even if only in dreams _._

For that to work, he has to let this inside-out curse tie his and Alexander's lives _together._

He's... not at all sure what that will do. Two souls, one life, half immortal, half mortal? 

"Oh." Ragnor's voice is right there, and Magnus lifts his head to see Ragnor and Catarina standing just beyond his reach, holding hands and eyes bright with magic; they'd clearly been following along with his diagnostic. "If the kairothanasia makes it so someone was never alive, the counter means they're extra alive, doesn't it?"

"I think that to dispel it properly the spell will have to be set on both of them. Your life will be his, and his death will be yours." Catarina's voice is soft as she smiles at Magnus, her eyes sad as every year of her life lingers in them. "Your wards are powerful, but not enough to dispel that curse, not entirely."

"A gift of magic that has never been seen before, nor will again." Ragnor whispers. "Your wards combined with Camille's curse, Vampire blood and Warlock magic, both shaped by Seelie mirrors. It's the prophecy, Magnus."

"If it does what we think... He'll lose his family again." Magnus wants this, wants to save Alexander, wants to see a future that's not just in their dreams, but he doesn't know if Alexander does, and he can't ask.

 _Immortality wears on everyone, in different ways._

They may not become completely immortal, but they won't quite be mortal anymore, either. 

"I've never seen him take that necklace off," Catarina counters. "I think you're his family, too."

Magnus can't speak, can't think, doesn't move.

"He'd want to live." Ragnor's voice is rough, and his free hand reaches out to grip Magnus' shoulder. "Even with your wards, the hit from that curse would have hurt, would have told him to give up, to let go, and he's still here, still breathing. At some level he had to have fought for that."

Magnus closes his eyes, swallows. Thinks of Alexander's smile, the steady weight of his gaze. Alexander never gives up, Magnus can't either. He _reaches,_ twists his hands in the air before him, pulling his magic from the necklace, back into himself, making the inside-out curse come with.

He screams as the spell explodes, sunlight in his veins, burning beneath his skin, and he can feel the weight of it, the twenty-eight years of Alec's life over and throughout the centuries of his own, stretched thin and fragile but undeniably _there,_ tangled together too tightly to ever be pulled apart again. 

He blinks himself back to awareness. The room's dimmer than it was, his bones ache and his magic's almost entirely depleted; he feels raw and scraped out, and it's only when he tries to shift to ease the soreness in his muscles that he realizes he's lying down, that same new quilt he'd noticed earlier draped over him. 

He turns his head, and forgets every bit of pain because there's _Alexander,_ close enough to touch at last, lying on his side, his arm tucked under his head, his eyes just barely open, a glint of light catching beneath the dark shadow of his lashes.

"Magnus." Alexander's mouth curves into the barest hint of a smile, his voice low and mumbling, barely more force behind the words than an exhale of a breath. "Hoping I'd dream of you."

Magnus sighs, feels the tremble of his breath, hope bright and shivering in his chest, and turns himself slowly onto his side to mirror Alexander.

There's a hint of a frown between Alexander's brows as he watches, but he holds it in until Magnus settles to a stop. 

"You look tired."

Magnus almost laughs, but he's afraid it'll hurt. "That's because we're both awake, darling."

Alexander's eyes widen, and his breath stutters, as if he's only now managed to pay enough attention to realize where they are. "You're rea—" His voice cracks as he tries to lift himself onto his elbow, and he slides back down onto the bed with a groan, making it clear he's at least as sore as Magnus is. "You're _here._ Now."

"Same place, same time." Magnus finally lets himself reach out, though his fingertips rest against the silver charm that he only notices now is solid black with tarnish, thick and set enough it doesn't even smudge at his touch, rather than touching Alexander himself. "You found it."

"When I was eight." Alexander's shoulders shift, and there's worry in his eyes. "The day I first dreamt of you." 

Magnus' eyes slide close, open again as he shakes his head, fabric wrinkling beneath his temple with the movement. 

"I think I made it almost forty years ago now, when I'd already known you for centuries." Magnus hums, thinks about the feel of the spell as it had tied them together. He can still feel it, a tug between his ribs that he knows will never go away again, that he knows is Alexander. "Our times match now."

Alexander's frown deepens, but he clearly isn't surprised, had already figured out how far off their histories were. "How?" 

"Camille." Magnus swallows, tries again. "She tried to curse you so that, rather than just dying, you'd never existed at all." 

"Magnus," Alexander breathes out, eyes wide with horror. "I'm so sorry." 

Magnus has to turn his head into his pillow, not sure if he's blocking a laugh or tears. Alexander is clearly more concerned about what that would have meant to Magnus than what it meant about his own life. "It's too powerful a curse to be easily dispelled or reflected..."

"Magnus," Alexander repeats, but this time his voice is steady. He's waiting for Magnus to look at him, to finish saying it. "Please."

Magnus makes himself return that steady gaze. "The spell still had to affect _time,_ not just the present, so it..." He chokes, gestures between them. 

Magnus wonders when Alexander first suspected the nature of their impossible connection, wonders what it must have been like for Alexander to hear Magnus mention _Camille,_ the Lightwood's personal devil, back when she'd just been a person, _a lover,_ someone who danced through life, who knew how to laugh, who wasn't always cruel. 

_I'm sorry,_ he thinks, but he knows it wasn't his fault, that now isn't the time to try and unpick the tangled weave of their timelines. 

"That's how the dreams." Alexander blinks, hums softly. "Never thought I'd be glad for something Camille started."

Magnus huffs out a startled laugh, then presses his hand to his chest with a groan. It hurts as much as he'd been afraid it would. "Our lives are tangled together for the future, too."

"But you're immortal." 

"I was."

Alexander makes a soft pained noise, as if he'd been wounded. 

"Just like you _were_ mortal."

Alexander's eyes close, slowly this time, and stay that way as he exhales, long and shaky. Magnus waits, for what he's not entirely sure, fear or anger or regret. "Thank the gods," Alexander whispers.

"What?" Magnus' voice cracks up, louder than he'd intended.

Alexander smiles, and his eyes are damp when he opens them, but they're alight, joy and relief and something that Magnus suspects might be _love._ Magnus forgets how to think. "I thought you meant you were going to die because of me, not that I'd get to live with you."

"Oh." That's all Magnus can manage. They stare at each other, until Magnus realizes it's still getting darker, and it's difficult to see anything beyond the shape of Alexander's cheekbone, the faint glint of his eyes in what little light is left. He realizes he is sure of Alexander, of how he feels, of what he wants. Of everything Alexander never said, but showed him nonetheless, night after night of conversations and silences, shoulders pressed together as they perched on that same damnable, wonderful stump. "I love you, too." 

Alexander smiles, wider and brighter than Magnus has ever seen before, and he has no idea what to do now that this is _real._ He reaches, and Alexander's lips are warm against the very tips of his fingers, and he feels that amazing smile soften beneath his touch. 

"You're real," Magnus whispers, "and you're _here,_ with me."

"You're real," Alexander agrees, "and you saved me."

"You first," Magnus says, and he's smiling like a loon, he's sure, as Alexander's hand wraps around his, fingers long and the skin just rough enough to catch, as he tugs Magnus' hand down out of the way and leans in even closer. Magnus closes his eyes, and Alexander's lips meet his at last, as gentle as a spring wind, soft and warm and sweet. 

Magnus sighs as their mouths part, as every last bit of worry and stress seems to leave him, and no matter how much he wants to savor every moment of this, he's not sure he can stay awake for much longer. 

"Sweet dreams," Alexander breathes against Magnus' mouth, and Magnus laughs again, blinks his eyes half open long enough to see Alexander, to answer with what they both know is true. 

"How can they not be, with you in them?"

Alexander scoffs out a breath, amused and fond. "Our times match now, there may not be any more dreams."

"You've always been my favorite dream, Alexander." 

Alexander kisses Magnus' forehead, the warm press of his lips lingering as he exhales. Magnus lets his eyes close, and his body settle.

 _I love you,_ he hears, and it doesn't matter if Alexander says it out loud, if he's imagining it, or dreaming it. He knows it's true. 

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [@rutherina](https://twitter.com/rutherina) for making sure this was vaguely coherent for the rest of you 💕 
> 
> The title’s from e.e. cummings’ _[if being mortised with a dream](https://books.google.com/books?id=WVl7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PR72&lpg=PR72&dq=%22if+being+mortised+with+a+dream%22&source=bl&ots=0fzovc_9c0&sig=ACfU3U1GtUFX_f_DKb5PkLXjYl-1wNOyEA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjy_oiW7MznAhVliOAKHbc8AywQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false). _(As were the last five attempts at a title, because the whole poem’s kind of perfect, but I suppose now that I’m publishing we’re all stuck with this one.) It's also on [tumblr](https://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/190794781513) and the catch-all tag on twitter is #jillyfic, if you're so inclined. 🥰


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